Myrtle Beach Real EstateMyrtle Beach Real Estate

Professionalism, Experience and Results

(843) 477-1777

  • Menu
  • Home
  • Buying a Home
    • Basic Search
    • Address
    • Map Search
    • Advanced Search
    • Mortgage Calculator
  • Selling Your Home
    • Home Valuation
    • Sold/Pending
  • Communities
    • Little River
    • North Myrtle Beach
    • Myrtle Beach
    • Surfside Beach
    • Garden City Beach
    • Murrells Inlet
    • Litchfield
    • Pawleys Island
    • Neighborhoods
  • Agents
  • Rentals
  • About
    • About MBRE
    • MBRE Mission
  • Contact
    • Get Email Updates
    • Create Account
    • My Account

Starting Price? Beware!

Meeting with Real Estate Professionals

So you’ve decided to sell your home and have a fairly good idea of what you think it is worth. Being a sensible home seller, you schedule appointments with three local listing agents who’ve been hanging stuff on your front doorknob for years. Each Real Estate Professional comes prepared with a “Competitive Market Analysis” on fancy paper and they each recommend a specific sales price.

Amazingly, a couple of the Real Estate Professionals have come up with prices that are lower than you expected. Although they back up their recommendations with recent sales data of similar homes, you remain convinced your house is worth more. When you interview the third agent’s figures, they are much more in line with your own anticipated value, or maybe even higher. Suddenly, you are a happy and excited home seller, already counting the money.

Which Real Estate Professional do you choose?

If you’re like many people, you pick Real Estate Professional number three. This is an agent who seems willing to listen to your input and work with you. This is an agent that cares about putting the most money in your pocket. This is an agent that is willing to start out at your price and if you need to drop the price later, you can do that easily, right? After all, everyone else does it!

The truth is that you may have just met an agent engaging in a questionable sales practice called “buying a listing.” He “bought” the listing by suggesting you might be able to get a higher sales price than the other agents recommended. Most likely, he is quite doubtful that your home will actually sell at that price. The intention from the beginning is to eventually talk you into lowering the price.

Why do agents “buy” listings? There are basically two reasons. A well-meaning and hard working agent can feel pressure from a homeowner who has an inflated perception of his home’s value. On the other hand, there are some agents who engage in this sales practice routinely.

What Happens Behind the Scenes

Whichever the case, if you start out with too high a price on your home, you may have just added to your stress level, and selling a home is stressful enough. There will be a lot of “behind the scenes” action taking place that you don’t know about.

Contrary to popular opinion, the listing agent does not usually attempt to sell your home to a homebuyer. That isn’t very efficient. Listing agents market and promote your home to the hordes of other local agents who do work with homebuyers, dramatically increasing your personal sales force. During the first couple of weeks your home should be a flurry of activity with buyer’s agents coming to preview your home so they can sell it to their clients.

If the price is right.

If you and your agent have overpriced, fewer agents will preview your home. After all, they are Real Estate Professionals, and it is their job to know local market conditions and home values. If your house is dramatically above market, why waste time? Their time is better spent previewing homes that are priced realistically.

Dropping Your Price…Too Late

Later, when you drop your price, your house is “old news.” You will never be able to recapture that flurry of initial activity you would have had with a realistic price. Your house could take longer to sell.

Even if you do successfully sell at an above market price, your buyer will need a mortgage. The mortgage lender requires an appraisal. If comparable sales for the last six months and current market conditions do not support your sales price, the house won’t appraise. Your deal falls apart. Of course, you can always attempt to renegotiate the price, but only if the buyer is willing to listen. Your house could go “back on the market.”

Once your home has fallen out of escrow or sits on the market awhile, it is harder to get a good offer. Potential buyers will think you might be getting desperate, so they will make lower offers. By overpricing your home in the beginning, you could actually end up settling for a lower price than you would have normally received.

Posted in: Home Sales

Post navigation

Getting Ready to Sell Your House »

Schedule a Showing

Our Featured Listings

6699 Enterprise Rd. $489,899

6699 Enterprise Rd. Myrtle Beach, South Carolina

5 Beds 3 Baths 2,890 SqFt 1.560 Acres

Listed by: Myrtle Beach Real Estate LLC

902 Sea Mountain Hwy. 5 $339,900

902 Sea Mountain Hwy. 5 North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina

3 Beds 2 Baths 1,155 SqFt

Listed by: Myrtle Beach Real Estate LLC

1905 S Ocean Blvd. S 1004 $259,000

1905 S Ocean Blvd. S 1004 Myrtle Beach, South Carolina

1 Beds 1 Baths 611 SqFt

Listed by: Myrtle Beach Real Estate LLC

2265 Huntington Dr. D $225,000

2265 Huntington Dr. D Surfside Beach, South Carolina

3 Beds 2 Baths 1,300 SqFt

Listed by: Myrtle Beach Real Estate LLC

5300 Pebble Ln. $139,900

5300 Pebble Ln. Conway, South Carolina

2 Beds 2 Baths 940 SqFt 0.500 Acres

Listed by: Myrtle Beach Real Estate LLC

2005 Greens Blvd. C-107 $119,900

2005 Greens Blvd. C-107 Myrtle Beach, South Carolina

2 Beds 2 Baths 846 SqFt

Listed by: Myrtle Beach Real Estate LLC

10 Oak Bay Dr. $179,900

10 Oak Bay Dr. Georgetown, South Carolina

0.170 Acres

Listed by: Myrtle Beach Real Estate LLC

TBD Enterprise Rd. $119,990

TBD Enterprise Rd. Myrtle Beach, South Carolina

0.510 Acres

Listed by: Myrtle Beach Real Estate LLC

36 Oak Bay Rd. $69,900

36 Oak Bay Rd. Georgetown, South Carolina

0.240 Acres

Listed by: Myrtle Beach Real Estate LLC

Myrtle Beach Real Estate Listings

Myrtle Beach Real Estate

1013 Surf Pine Dr.
Surfside Beach, SC 29575
843-477-1777

© 2023 Myrtle Beach Real Estate
Myrtle Beach Real Estate has made every effort to obtained the information regarding these listings from sources deemed reliable. However, we cannot warrant the complete accuracy thereof subject to errors, omissions, change of price, rental or other conditions, prior sale, lease or financing, or withdrawal without notice.

IDX website design and marketing by Surfside Web